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trifoliate-undergrowth · 2 months ago

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Ok @convenientalias pointed out that I could just order the book this was based on through interlibrary loan so I have now seen it. I won't say I read it, because as it turns out I hate it and I don't think I'll be able to make myself finish it, but I read the first 25 pages properly and skimmed the rest. It answered a lot of questions and raised other ones.

It was originally published in parts as a newspaper serial, so the chapters are very sensational and chaotic and kind of disjointed. A lot of my "why is it Like That" questions are answered by "it's a serial from 1919".

Pierre's backstory is Like That in the movie because it's being narrated by his priest mentor who's transparently in love with him. The book opens with this guy monologuing at a friend about how cool and strong and pure of heart and brave and godly and innocent Pierre is. And then he has a bit where he says he's avoiding spending too much time with Pierre because his emotions are Too Much and he can't afford to tie Pierre down with them.

Yes everyone in this book is in love with Pierre. It's the himbo charm.

Remember how confused I was about Pierre's incredibly long journey across Mexico? They did change that, but not the distance part, just his starting point. In the book he grew up in Canada. Thus the French name. That's right, he's from Canada. Yes, he travels all the way from Canada to the "mountain desert" (San Luis valley??? Maybe??) and it's kind of glossed over. He did kill his horse and have to buy another one. Don't worry about it. "Why Canada?" Why not? It's very funny to me that they were like, we can't have him be Canadian, that's too much. He grew up in Mexico now. But we should totally keep the impossible distance he travels to visit his dying father so let's put him DEEP in Mexico. Just to preserve that air of "how the fuck did he travel that far in that amount of time". It's important to the story you know.

Neither origin really affects Pierre for the rest of the story. He's no more Mexican than he was Canadian.

The dialogue that I felt was awkward is Like That because it was lifted verbatim from the book. It was just awkward sounding in the original book also and they changed nothing.

Jack isn't the endgame love interest in the book like she is in the movie. In the book she has an unrequited crush on Pierre, who finds her too butch to be attracted to and thinks of her like a brother. (👎I agree with the movie director on this one. Jack/Pierre 4 ever.)

In the book, Pierre falls in love with a flirtatious girl named Mary (she's originally 14, I think there's a time skip and she'd be 16 when they run off together?) who he first meets trapped under a fallen tree that he can't move so obviously he has to lie down next to her so the magic cross luck will protect them both. And it. KINDA does? Nobody died but he was knocked unconscious and rolled down the mountain, and that's how Jim's gang found him in the book. Makes sense. I mean, none of the rest of it makes sense, but I understand why he was unconscious enough to be picked up and moved to a secondary location now.

I know Mary is 14 in this scene because she keeps mentioning it, saying it's too bad that she's too young for Pierre, and then flirting with him a lot anyway. So. This is just Max Brand's Underage Kink: The Character. (I think she might get more character development later but I was out of patience for reading this book. Idk she cries a lot.)

Anyways Jack is just a guy with a complicated gender, obviously she loses in the love interest battle to The Author's Thinly Disguised Fetish, who Arrives in the Most Contrived Porn Plot Way Possible. RIP Jack.

A lot of this book is just angst and love triangle drama about Jack being in love with Pierre who is in love with Mary and feels like Jack is like his brother while Mary is trying to flirt with Pierre while being thwarted by Jack. I hate it. I'm not reading all that.

Vaguely interesting gender discussion but it's THIS BOOK so it doesn't really progress past "wow Jack is boy but also girl??? *Confused 1919 noises* surely no one person can both shoot gun and be beautiful!"

Jack ends the book with Pierre's cursed cross necklace thing and there's a sequel about her continuing to be tragic and plagued by bad luck. Why can't anything good happen to her oh my God

I'm not sure if the backstory about McGurk being Pierre's biological father is in the book. Wild if they made that up for the movie?? You made me look at McGurk unbuttoning his fly with NO book basis? You just wanted to do that??

Thrift store Westerns I've never heard of part 2!

SHOOT FIRST AND PRAY YOU LIVE (Because Luck Has Nothing to Do With It) is an indie film from 2009 and winner of the independent spirit award at Santa Fe Film Festival, apparently. Wikipedia says it was based on the novel Luck by Max Brand. It's got everything! It's got maybe in fact too much going on! It's got split screen, it's got a brief animated sequence, it's got so many fucking flashbacks.

Opens with this, which I find very funny for some reason:

While we're on disclaimers, my quotations are summarized and not exact bc I am not going over ever few seconds of this movie. Also this movie is rated R so assume Yes for most common western content warnings.

Very GBU intro with about 10 seconds of empty street, a surprise close-up and then a tense shootout that we'll only have context for later. I hope.

The first real scene introducing our main character (Red Pierre) is a very gory shootout in a saloon. The shots themselves are fast and then we get a blow-by-blow of exactly where each of the 3 shots fired went. Lots of squirting blood from exploded arteries. I respect it but also was deliberately not looking at the screen too hard for like a solid 30 seconds or so lol. Red's first shot was shooting his opponent's thumb off, so he pulled a Silence a la The Great Silence. However in this case it was not simply a disabling move bc he did just keep shooting and murder those 2 guys. also. so. not sure what the point of that was.

Then he turns around and makes awkward eye contact with the only other guy who hasn't left the saloon, an old man who makes a high-pitched sound and goes 'I didn't see anything! Actually, no, I saw everything and you were totally in the right hahaha don't even worry about it....' Red asks if he has a horse and he stammers that he's got a burro and Red is welcome to take it. "My horse died, or I wouldn't ask," Red clarifies awkwardly, before escaping with the old man's burro. It's now night, Red frees a Mexican man whom some nasty gang members were hanging from a tree as a form of torture. Red waits at the tree, presumably waiting for these guys to show up so he can kill them? idk. He falls asleep immediately and wakes up being guarded by the daughter of the aforementioned gang leader.

fuckin womp womp sound effect plays as he realizes what happened. My guy what did you expect? Why did you go to sleep at the Local Asshole Gang's Designated Torture Tree?

STOP LOOKING SURPRISED YOU HAD TO KNOW THEY WERE COMING BACK.

Anyways the gang leader's son just got killed and then he saw Red and was like, oh yeah I hear he's killed people. Good enough! New son figure and new gang member to fill the empty seat at the table! (Everyone thinks this is a terrible idea, especially gun girl. Red is like 'you're right, what a terrible idea, I'll just... leave.... *gun pointed at him threateningly* ok or not or I'll just sit here I guess')

There's a bit where the camera zooms in on individual gang members and names them. There is no way I am remembering all 5 of these guys at once. The girl's name is Jack though. Cool. Her dad is a creep and does not seem to like her much He does, he just gets really weird dialogue. idk, I have mixed but not very coherent feelings about how Jack is handled in this movie like, generally. Anyways gang leader Jim Payne comments that Red is 'older than I thought, but young enough for what I want to make of you.' He then goes on a rant about how when he was Red's age he had a mentor who shaped him into the man he is now and he's going to be that person for Red.

Red is....

Deeply confused by all this?? but willing to roll with it for his own agenda. If the gang helps him out with some Mysterious Tasks he needs to accomplish, he'll join them willingly. Payne is delighted to hear it. The first task is burying Red's dead father. Everyone chews on some loco weed and gets high as shit before setting off on this long journey (except for Knife Guy, who I guess is loco enough without the weed and thus declines it.)

TWENTY YEARS AGO (we are getting an extended flashback)

Pierre's dad, who is now dead and needs to be buried, was having an affair with Red Pierre's mom. Bob McGurk and the other guys Red wants to revenge kill show up at his mom's house and shoot some guy and assault her. (I thought the guy they shot was her dad but eventually, in a later flashback, we find out it was just like. some other dude she happened to know, and that the killers thought it was Red's dad). She swears to kill them all and eventually manages to kill the sheriff, leaving 2 others for someone else to please take care of.

Red Pierre's dad simply can't, because he is wearing a sweater. He can't shoot no one! Not in a sweater! Despite his extended musings about what a terrible man he was and how he's going to hell, he's apparently just not a shooting man, thus letting his girlfriend be tortured by the local gang for months (yes this went on for Months before she managed to stab the sheriff.) He's also not a "raising my illegitimate son" type apparently, so he drops the kid off at a random Mexican mission to be raised by the friars.

the subtitles helpfully provide pronunciation. Also, THIS PLACE IS LIKE 900 MILES FROM THE BORDER? IS THIS WHOLE MOVIE TAKING PLACE FULLY INSIDE MEXICO (IF SO WHY IS ALMOST EVERYONE WHITE AND SPEAKING AMERICAN ACCENTED ENGLISH) AND IF NOT, DID THIS GUY RIDE 900 MILES TO DROP OFF THE KID HE DIDN'T WANT TO RAISE SOMEWHERE HE WOULD NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER FIND HIS WAY BACK???? WHAT'S HAPPENING. WHY ISN'T RED SPEAKING SPANISH IF HE WAS RAISED DEEP IN CENTRAL MEXICO. HOW DID WE GET HERE. HOW DID WE GET ANYWHERE. WHY ARE YOU SO INSISTENT ABOUT THIS SPECIFIC GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION THAT DOES NOT MAKE SENSE. LIke don't get me wrong it's a very cool geographical location but what is happening.

Anyways, Red's dying mother whispered something (I thought it was her murderous plans but it will later be revealed that I was wrong about this) into his baby ears as he lay in her dying arms and now he's gotta go murder the bad guys that terrorized his mom but first must bury his illegitimate dad who was nice to his mom but did not protect her from the other guys and also did not claim or raise him bc the dad was married to some other unseen unnamed woman who is presumably also dead now I guess bc she's just not ever going to come up. Simple! I'm so confused. The priest who raised Red after he got yeeted 900 miles south into Mexico has a monologue about raising his beloved child and WAIT HOLY SHIT IT'S ANIMATED NOW. WE'RE HAVING AN ANIMATED SEQUENCE???

I swear to God I am not making this movie up. delightful. what is happening ever. anyways no wonder Red just goes "this might as well happen" about acquiring a new father figure in Payne, he has so many fuckingn dads already...

The priest is like 'yeah I didn't even try to raise him to be a good Christian I knew he was destined to be a total badass adn beat people the fuck up so I taught him to fight bobcats and grizzly bears and climb trees and catch fish with his teeth and shit. bc I'm cool'

The priest then coyly mentions that Pierre is too much of a badass in the boxing ring and nobody wants to fight him, so he uses him as a form of penance on sinners by making them box this violent child and get beat up.

THIS IS NOT THE SAME MAN? THIS IS NOT OUR GUY? DID HE LOSE ALL HIS PIGMENTATION AS HE MATURED. DID A GRIZZLY BEAR BITE ALL THE BROWN OUT OF HIS HAIR AND NOW IT'S RED? WHAT HAPPENED. THIS IS NOT A RED HAIRED BLUE EYED KID. IS OUR CURRENT GUY NOT RED PIERRE? IS HE ACTUALLY SOME OTHER DUDE? IS RED PIERRE (THE REAL ONE) GOING TO SHOW UP LATER??? WHAT'S HAPPENING. (This kid is a very good actor and a good fighter by the way, but he is not a good double for the guy he is allegedly the child version of.)

His opponent mumbles "que diablo" as he's getting knocked out with the most American pronunciation I've ever heard. I don't even know Spanish that well adn I can tell that's some extremely American Spanish. also

thank God we're free of the flashback. We've been here so long. No specific time given bc that would require me going back through this and I don't want to reexperience it.

...My theory about this flashback is it's showing us in realtime how Red's story becomes a legend (part of the intro featured a guy telling us and a bunch of children a story about The Legend Of Red Pierre so Storytelling is like, a Theme.) I guess? It would explain why current Red is kind of a sweet awkward quiet kid and flashback Red is Paul Bunyan if he was a ginger (but only sometimes.)

aww novice Red is so cute.

YOU HAVE THE AUDACITY TO SHOW ME A MAP MONTAGE? DO YOU REALLY WANT TO REMIND ME OF THE 900 MILE DISTANCE BETWEEN YOUR STATED CURRENT SETTING AND WHERE THE REST OF THIS MOVIE SUPPOSEDLY TAKES PLACE? YOU WANT ME TO THINK ABOUT DISTANCE IN THIS MOVIE?? ARE YOU SURE

oh my god we get another different flashback about Red's mom Irene now and. His dad fully was there the day that the gang killed that other guy and assaulted her. he had a gun. he had the drop on them. he... ran awayyy! It haunted him. Finally, years later, he took his gun and went to shoot McGurk, who shot him instead. that's how we ended up here, Red still has 2 guys left to kill for his parents. I've now heard this story like 19 times and it gets slightly more complicated and yet somehow less interesting every time.

Red's batshit crazy rogue priest daddy is ok with the revenge and gives him a???? Cursed crucifix??? that will bring blessings to him and evil to others?????? What's happening. I was raised Catholic I did not get any magical amulets like this

ok so we're caught up. Red killed one of the 2 guys in the first big shootout of the movie, his dad was the guy getting shot in the intro. Jack joins the men officially as part of the gang. We are now getting backstory for some random gang member whom I do not care about.

Blessedly this was a short flashback. he used to be a blacksmith before he went axe crazy, or more accurately hammer crazy, with a hammer. I think he had some reason but I couldn't understand the dialogue in that bit so who knows.

OH NO ANOTHER GANG MEMBER IS GOING TO TELL HIS LIFE STORY NOW... IS THIS GOING TO BE THE WHOLE MIDDLE OF THE MOVIE? PEOPLE TAKING TURNS TALKING ABOUT THE VIOLENCE THEY'VE DONE? wait a minute. false alarm. the next guy starts his story but is INTERRUPTED! By McGurk dramatically showing up. Ok fine that was funny. you got me.

anyways McGurk wants Red dead. what a shock. oh god another flashback PLEASE DO NOT ZOOM IN ON MCGURK PULLING HIS WIENER OUT PLEASE GOD

I do like the period accurate costuming in this movie. buttons yes. can I be done here? can the movie be over here? we're not even halfway in how can I endure this.

anyways. Red and McGurk have a showdown and fire simultaneously, each wounding the other. The other gang is delighted by this as the previously untouchable McGurk being wounded means his charm is broken. He can be killed! Eventually. (?)

The storyteller from the beginning of the movie comes back and tells us that McGurk disappeared for 2 years and that Red did lots of exciting stuff during that time but we're not going to get into all that right now. He also mentions that Red has the gang working with him while McGurk has 'always been a lone wolf'. This is straight up incorrect, as we had to see at least 3 painfully long flashbacks of McGurk and his 2-3 (I forgot) cronies shooting Red's mom Irene's friend full of holes and assaulting her. As a group! He did in fact have help before, if maybe not now. anyways. I shouldn't try to logic this movie.

The kids go to a masquerade. It's cute. Jack is enjoying the dress but worries it'll compromise her tough butch persona if the boys find out. Red promises not to tell anyone. There's a trippy extended rewind sequence that shows, everything playing in reverse, that McGurk, now wearing an eyepatch, has been stalking them all day, and then a completely unnecessary but in parts very funny sequence where McGurk gets a shave and the barber gossips to him about his backstory , providing a couple details we hadn't known but that I don't think matter much. 'now I never even seen a picture of McGurk, but they say he was an unnatural looking man, with a face you'd never forget,' says the barber, dabbing shaving cream onto McGurk's face. lol. It gets to be too much when the barber implies that McGurk dragged himself off into the wilderness and died somewhere, never to be heard of again. McGurk, very alive, pulls out his gun and asks if Red is still alive, and where to find him, thus bringing us back to before the masquerade, though first we must get ANOTHER flashback showing that McGurk did indeed drag himself off into the wilderness and ALMOST die, and he spent the whole time thinking about how much he hated Red.

Then there's a bit from I guess before the masquerade in which one of the gang members gets jittery over one of the others not showing up on time and tells Red he's bad luck, despite Jim Payne's argument that he's brought them nothing but good luck for these past 2 years. Red and the complainer square up for a duel and the other gang members go wait outside. We get some split screen of inside and outside the building:

It's fun but I'm not sure why it needed to happen. The complainer decides to just Not today and slinks off, but Jim mumbles that the other gang members will have to pick sides and a breakup is coming. We exit split screen. Then for no discernible reason we re-enter split screen.

Split screen gives us 2 slightly different shots of the same porch scene for a very funny and confusing moment, then McGurk steps into view in one shot while the gang doesn't notice him in the other. He shoots Jim Payne, Rodrigo and I think that's hammer guy? I think he killed the other non-complainer gang member earlier but the 2 guys sitting outside were shooting at a wasp and therefore didn't hear his shots, which happened at the same time? That section was confusing.

Ok NOW we're back up to the masquerade, and we have to watch a bunch of the same shots again. No wonder this movie is nearly 2 hours, it's mostly repetition, a lot of it of the same couple of flashbacks. Anyways, McGurk shows up at the masquerade, threatens Red, dances with Jack. Red gets knocked unconscious by someone and wakes up tied to a post in the middle of nowhere.

Oh look, Chollas! That places this movie as taking place in the Sonoran Desert, so somewhere in Arizona, southern American California, parts of Nevada or New Mexico, Baja California (unlikely) or northwestern Mexico. Filming apparently took place in New Mexico. You will notice that zero of these places are ANYWHERE near the one SPECIFICALLY NAMED location with title card and everything, TzinTzunTzan Mexico. No I'm not done being annoying about this I'm never done. Does anyone know how distances work?

Anyways. Red is tied up, concussed and dehydrated. The complainer from the gang shows up and mocks him. It was he who kidnapped Red! And now he's going to kill him. But fairly, of course. He'll give Red a weapon--he places it in his left hand and leaves him tied up, of course. And I am going to turn on captions for these because I need you to see that I'm not making this dialogue up oh my God.

"Because I face my challenges head-on! Like a train going down the tracks! I love trains. ...Robbing... trains."

Red shoots the complainer, whose name I will never not mishear as Gandalf (it's Gandall or something?) and then Some Guy happens along to find Red. I'm pretty sure this is the same guy he freed from being tied to a tree at the start of the movie but I'm not sure. The guy comments 'it's only fair' as he releases Red, so maybe I'm right? It's not super obvious if they recognize each other or not. He does threaten Red a bit first before freeing him. idk.

Anyways I think this man is hot and watching him playfully mess with Red a bit before releasing him was the closest I've come to sexualizing anyone in this movie. Mostly I have been too confused and haven't cared about anyone enough.

Red, now freed, finds McGurk McLurking over his mother's grave and yells at him to get away from it, furious. They have a showdown. Red shoots McGurk's gun hand, then drops his own gun and dares McGurk to try to pick his up faster. McGurk doesn't move. Red mocks him, then finally tells him that there would be no satisfaction in killing him like this, even though Red could, and to get out. McGurk leaves his gun, throws his belt of ammunition in Red's general direction and skedaddles. A flashback reveals that Irene told Red's presumed father whom he buried in the beginning of the movie that McGurk was the young Red's father (I did wonder about that. But also how did she know? Red was redhaired like his father. Well I guess his non-father was more blond but like. He definitely doesn't look like McGurk. And all those creeps had their way with her so like. how do we... know... that it's him.... in particular. None of these guys had red hair also. except maybe his dad who wasn't his dad.) but anyways... in Red's non-dad's one moment of bravery, he picked up baby Red, saw McGurk McLurking outside, and shouted 'the boy's mine. Get out!' at him. And McGurk actually McLeft. In the present, once again, he runs away from Red. an interesting ending, though I'm not sure I'd call it a satisfying one--maybe if it was more "Red is sticking to his moral principles of not killing where avoidable" was more of a Thing up to this point, but like, Red has killed a bunch of people and not seemed to mind joining the outlaw gang and presumably doing a bunch of crime with them for 2 years. So. idk??

It's then revealed via, surprise, ANOTHER FLASHBACK that Red had given the magical cross amulet thing to Jack before their dance and so has been winning these last fights with his own skill and no luck, which is a fun reveal I guess. It then cuts to Jack who has been caught and tied up by bandits though, so like, I guess the cross does not work at all bc that is just some real bad luck for her. So. What was the point of any of this?

The movie ends there. No explanation of what's going on with Jack. We do not see her get rescued. I don't even know who those guys that tied her up are. We've never seen them before. What the fuck is happening. ROLL CREDITS!

Ok thoughts: idk interesting movie. I didn't feel strongly about it. I think it's clear the people making it were having a lot of fun so that's cool. Red was kind of a fun character, especially when he's awkward and dorky. Very lovable. However his motivations and general morality are an enigma to me. For a guy who has that much exposition about him I'm really very confused about what's going on with him, which does not seem like it should be possible at this point.

Jack was potentially a fun character but I feel her dad was so weird about her gender while I didn't have a solid grip on how she felt about it herself. It's implied that she has to be a man to join the gang and her dad allows it as long as she dresses masc and shoots guns but views her as neither man nor woman. Potentially fun concept.. I really wish we didn't end the movie with a casual non sequitur of her getting attacked by some random dudes. Do we not have enough women experiencing violence in this movie already. It's in every fuckign western I watch and I am just so tired of it.

idk. I think Red should've shot McGurk. It's not like he was Not shooting anyone else. Why would he shoot all those other guys and NOT McGurk. Maybe he thinks it's crueller to make him live knowing that he had to run away from Red. idk. Also why did we have those two (and a half? there's a brief moment where he talks to someone in a saloon?) sequences of the storyteller talking about the legend of Red Pierre? What did that add?

I did like some of the humor in this movie. Generally I think it was rather incoherent but had some fun along the way. Maybe too much, to a confusing degree. I also liked the costuming and how dusty and greasy everyone looks.

I feel like maybe the characterization was clearer in the book but falls flat or just seems confusing in a movie... this is just a theory though.

Anyways. Unexpected parallels between this movie and the other western I'd never heard about before finding it at a thrift store and making a tumblr post about, Gallowwalkers:

-Some kind of secret society of magical wizards which is vaguely Catholicism-flavored and described as a religious order despite having absolutely nothing to do with real world Catholicism

-Older, morally questionable gunfighter notices a conventionally attractive younger white boy and immediately goes "that's my new boy. I'm adopting him. Boy, hello, I am your new mentor, whether you want one or not. Come shoot people with me." In both cases it's so weird and flat and confusing that I don't even ship it, despite being a known freak and Wanting to...

-generally confusing movie. Too much going on that is never fully explained and yet the stuff that is explained gets too wordy.

Anyways I skipped through the credits to the end looking for some explanation of the ending and did get this:

To be continued?? you thought you were going to make another one of these? well that explains the ending I guess. oh well.

There actually WAS also a brief funny stinger of the shopkeeper whom Red and Jack held up and told to lie on the floor and count to 5000 reaching 4998 and going "To hell with this" and getting up. lol.

#whoops hit reblog instead of draft #might edit this later #shoot first and pray you live #luck #max brand

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kpopfanfictrash · 5 years ago

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DRAFT 1 (SCENE 10) of The Art of More.

Author’s Note: I received a request to share portions of my first draft versus my final and discuss the changes I made and why. I’m willing to do this (*swallows nervously*) but PLEASE do not reblog these first draft posts. They are not intended to be spread on their own. If you do reblog, I will request you take it down.

Below the cut is the first draft of the scene from the hockey house party, where Jungkook and Y/N kiss.

“So,” you announced, laying one palm on the counter. There were only three cups left before each of you. “Do your house rules include re-racking?”

Jungkook paused, then nodded. “One re-rack,” he said. “Why? Are you using yours now?”

“Yep.” Squinting at the table, you declared, “Spotlight. Line ‘em up.”

Re-racking was another rule in beer pong which varied from house to house. It allowed each player to rearrange the cups on the table once per game, placing them in an easier formation to sink. Spotlight meant your three remaining cups would be lined up front to back, like the three colors in a traffic light.

Squinting down the row, you aimed and threw your ball, but the second you did, Seokjin let out a yell. The sound jerked your head and your ball went wide. Embarassingly so; you failed to even land on the table.

Grinning widely, Jungkook bent and scooped the ball from the ground. “Huh,” he said, returning to you. “What a shame.”

Indignant, you scowled. “That wasn’t my fault! Seokjin yelled right as I took my shot!”

Jungkook pityingly shook his head. “Those aren’t the rules, Y/N,” he said, shaking a finger. “It’s only interference if someone physically touches you. The shot stands.”

Narrowing your gaze, you stared at him over the table. “Only physical touching?” you said slowly, an idea dawning.

Jungkook nodded. “Yep.”

“Hm. Alright,” you said, stepping back from the table. “Fine.”

Jungkook paused a moment, clearly hearing the subterfuge in your voice. You gave him your sweetest smile though, and he finally shook his head and lined up for his shot.

Leaning forward, you placed both hands on the table. Now, you found yourself thankful for your decision to wear the pink dress. It had the best cleavage of all your options. Sliding your hands closer, you pushed your breasts together.

Jungkook glanced up and froze, jaw faintly slack.

“Something wrong?” you said sweetly.

From the look on his face, it seemed Jungkook was in danger of popping a blood vessel.

“No,” he said at last, voice heavily strained. “Nothing’s the matter.”

“Alright,” you said cheerfully.

Jungkook took a deep breath, aiming again. A second before he could throw, you slid your palm further and released a sigh, forcing your chest to rise and fall.

Jungkook missed.

“Yes!” you cried, springing upwards to spin around in a circle.

The room tilted a bit underneath you, forcing you to grab the table to steady yourself. Damn, it had been a while since you drank this much beer at one time. At least Jungkook missing mean you didn’t have to drink another cup.

Across the table, Jungkook looked at you critically. “Y/N, are you okay? Maybe you should slow down.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” you said, already picking up your next ball to throw. “If I forfeit the game, does that mean I have to troll, too?”

Jungkook licked his lips, glancing across the room at Taehyung. “I wouldn’t tell anyone,” he said, turning back. “Listen, the rules are just supposed to be fun. No one’s supposed to get –”

“I can handle it,” you said, cutting him off to throw the ball. After spinning twice around the rim, it sank into the back cup. “See?” you declared, clapping both hands. “I’m fine. Your turn, Jeon.”

Although Jungkook took a deep breath, he nodded and lined up to throw. “Whoops,” he said calmly, missing the table. “Bad shot.”

You narrowed your gaze.

Drawing back your arm, you threw and your ball made the first cup. “Drink,” you said, not looking away.

Jungkook finished his cup and moved this aside.

His next shot bounced off the rim. “Whoops,” he said with a shrug.

“Jeon Jungkook,” you said through gritted teeth. Leaving your side of the table, you marched across the room to stand before him. Poking his chest with your finger, you tipped your head back. “Stop losing to me on purpose.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m not.”

“You are!”

“You were going to win anyways,” he said, his tone maddening. “What does it matter if you drink the rest of the cups?”

“You’re being too nice! Stop being nice to me.”

“What do you want me to be?” he said, voice strangled. “Mean?”

“No.” You scowled. “But now you’re just being patronizing. At least before, you always treated me like your equal.”

“Oh my god.” Jungkook groaned, dragging a hand down his face. “Are you aware how ridiculous you sound right now?”

“You’re the ridiculous one!”

“Oh, yeah?” he shot back. “You drive me absolutely insane.”

“Well, same!”

“Great,” he ground out, gaze heated. The space between you was practically non-existent by now, each breath he took brought you closer together. “Anything else you want to say?”

“Yeah!” you declared, glancing at his lips.

But then you said nothing at all. Instead, you grabbed his face with both hands and pulled his lips to yours. Jungkook let out a muffled sound, half-surprise and half-hissed exclamation. His shock lasted barely a second before his arms wrapped around you.

His back hit the wall, pulling you forward and you took the invitation, pressing your body to each indent he offered. You fought to stay steady, head spinning from the drag of his hand up your spine. When his tongue swiped at your bottom lip, you parted your lips and then, you were gone.

This wasn’t like the last time you kissed, in Rosenbarr’s office when you were about to be caught. That had been a cover, and excuse and although you may have felt something then, whatever this was blew it out of the water. Each inch of your skin felt alive, electric and vibrant where your body touched his.

Jungkook’s hand fisted in your hair, pulling back briefly to catch his breath. Eyes opening, he looked at you and said his name. There was such raw emotion to the way that he said it, hesitant and dark, that you snapped to attention.

All former tipsiness somehow erased, leaving you with the stark realization of where you were and what you were doing. This was Jungkook. Jungkook, who, only days prior you had called your worst enemy and now, you were kissing him against the wall in a very public place.

As though seeing the change in your expression, Jungkook frowned. “Y/N?” he said slowly. “Are you okay?”

Abrupt, you pulled your hands from his frame and took a step back. Head swaying, you shook your head.

“I’m… yeah. I’m fine. Just… fine,” you breathed, spinning around.

Pushing your way into the crowd, you ignored the whispers of people around you as you fought for the door. Behind you, you heard Jungkook calling your name but you ignored it. Shit, shit, shit.

Luckily, you found Gina by the front door and her face was no longer attached to Hoseok.

“Y/N?” she said, brow furrowing as soon as she saw your face. “What’s wrong?”

“Let’s go,” you declared, coming to a stop.

Glancing over your shoulder, Gina saw Jungkook in the crowd and narrowed her eyes. “What’d he do?” she said, automatic.

“Nothing,” you said, grabbing her hand to drag her out the door. “He did nothing wrong. I just need to leave. Now.”

[ FINAL VERSION OF THE ART OF MORE HERE ]

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